The shadow of the former Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri looms over the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia with leaks from the investigation and his close relationship to murder suspect Yorgen Fenech raising serious questions over his potential involvement.

‘Keith’ has been littered throughout middleman Melvin Theuma’s secret recordings of his conversations with Fenech, which are being played out in court. During the tapes, the murder suspect even described how Schembri would call him every day, sometimes as early as 3am.

Schembri and Fenech’s doctor has even admitted that he acted as a secret messenger between the pair. Meanwhile, Schembri’s lost and yet uncovered phone and the existence of a covert WhatsApp group are yet to be explained.

A segment of the secret recordings that were played in a recent court sitting may shed some light on when Schembri found out about the murder and whether he did anything to help the culprits get away with it.

In the recorded conversation taken sometime in May 2018, a full year and five months before the arrest, Theuma and Fenech were discussing Vince Muscat.

Muscat is one of the men who allegedly carried out the assassination who was willing to provide information to investigators in exchange for a pardon.

Theuma:

Now we’ll see what Keith [Schembri] says.

Fenech:

I know what he’ll say because I know Keith. Few people know him as well as I do.

Keith’s going to tell me the same thing he always does. Ħaq għal-Madonna I couldn’t do it [inaudible].

I told him ‘what would you have done’? I told him I would have told him but… I told him that you didn’t have another way. I asked him whether I did anything wrong, and he told me definitely not. He told me that he should have told me before, but anyway. I was bad ħaq għal-Madonna

The conversation then veered off to Caruana Galizia herself, with Fenech claiming that only “four thousand extremely frustrated people” supported the journalist after her murder, with “even Adrian Delia abandoning” her.

It remains to be seen how the case will develop. However, with Schembri set to appear in the police’s case against Fenech on 27th March, maybe more light will be shed on his role in the horrific assassination that has threatened to rip the country apart.

Inspector Keith Arnaud has confirmed under oath that Schembri remains under investigation for his potential involvement in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, along with a litany of other offences which include:

Tampering with evidence, leaking extensive information about the investigation, obstructing justice, and acquiring a phantom job for middleman Melvin Theuma.

What do you think of these latest developments?